Despair and Hope
by Jedi Master Misty Sman-Esay
Summary: Leia and Han struggle to have a family. AU
1. Despair and Hope

A one shot that might become two.

Han and Leia struggle to become parents. AU as far as the EU goes but not part of my AU.

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Leia felt like crying as she stared at the home pregnancy test: negative.

Her and Han had been trying for nearly three years to have a family but all of it seemed to be in vain.

Her and Han had married shortly after the fall of the Empire and decided to wait a few months to start a family; a family that felt just out of her grasp.

Leia tried to seek solace in the Force but peace eluded her.

She quickly threw the test into the trash, washed her hands and headed for the sitting area of her and Han's apartment.

As she stared out the window in front of her at the skies of Coruscant she wondered what type of mother she would be. Breha Organa hadn't been a true mother to her. It was as if she only existed to be shown off like either a pet or an accessory.

Maybe that's why she sought out the vague memories she had of her real mother.

Leia wondered if her mother would have been better than Breha or if the nameless woman would have lived up to her expectations. She knew the image of her biological father had been shattered when Luke had dumped her with the news that she was his sister and that he was Darth Vader's son.

Bail had raised her well and taught her valuable life lessons. She briefly wondered what Anakin Skywalker could have taught her.

She pushed her thoughts aside. There was nothing to gain by dwelling on the past and what her life could have been.

Sometime later Leia felt Han's Presence coming towards her and forced herself to smile.

A minute later the front door opened and Han came in.

"Hey sweetheart," he said with a smile as he came over to her.

Leia stood and hugged her scoundrel.

"How did the meeting go?" she asked, pushing some of his hair out of his face.

"It went better than I thought it would." He answered.

"Are you hungry?" Leia asked as she headed for the kitchen.

"Some of last night's mashed tubers would be nice." Han called out to her from their bedchamber.

Leia was heating up the mashed tubers when she remembered that she had forgotten to throw the covering for the pregnancy test away.

She didn't want Han to tell her that they would keep on trying. It was beginning to her too much.

She felt Han approach her.

Tears ran down her cheeks as he gently pulled her close to him.

"Leia, maybe it's time to see someone about this.

The last thing Leia wanted was speculation on the visit to any medical specialist. She had been torn into when her and Han had married and she was all too aware that gossip rags were wondering why she and Han hadn't produced any children for the next generation of Jedi.

But if they could learn why they weren't having any children then they could hopefully fix it.

"Alright," she whispered.

xxxxxx

A few days later Leia and Han sat in front of two specialists. One was a Mirialan and the other was a Kaminoan.

In all the talk she hadn't caught exactly what each of them specialized in but one of them specialized in fertility.

"The tests have come back and there is nothing wrong with either one of your reproductive systems." The Mirialan said.

Leia could sense a 'but' in there and she could tell that Han picked up on it too.

"Since we couldn't find an issue in the reproductive systems we scanned your DNA for faults. And we found something both fascinating and baffling" The Kaminoan said.

"Baffling?" Leia heard Han ask.

"Knight Solo has DNA strands that don't belong to a human or any known sentient species." The Kaminoan answered.

Leia frowned.

"But I look human and all other scans of my genetic code say that I am human." She said.

"On the surface it looks human but it isn't." The Kaminoan said. "We wouldn't have known something was off if we hadn't been looking for flaws or other oddities in your DNA."

"Which parent?" Leia asked; hoping that she would be told it was maternal. It would be a walk in the park to find her mother if that was the case.

"The foreign DNA comes from your father and he got it in turn from his father. After that it is unclear where it came from after that. It is almost as if your parental grandfather just popped into existence." The Kaminoan commented.

"The simulations that we have run show that it will be difficult for the both of you tp conceive. And then you might not de able to carry them to term."

Leia felt as if her chest was being squeezed.

She might never have children.

"There is hope since your mother carried twins that you too will be able to have children." The Mirialan commented.

Leia just nodded.

xxxxxx

It had been nearly three months since she and Han had seen the specialists. She had felt numb for so long.

She felt cheated by the Force. She wanted children so badly but the Force decided that she wouldn't.

She had silently begged the Force for an answer but she hadn't received an answer.

She suddenly raced for the refresher to relieve her stomach of her breakfast.

After she was finished she retrieved the home medical kit to check her temperature. She couldn't afford to come down with any type of virus since she had said that she would help Luke with the new students. She had promised to show them proper etiquette for social functions.

Not to mention she had promised Mon Mothma that she would be present for an audience with Dacus Reel the Prime Minster of Tatooine.

Finally the thermonitor beeped and Leia checked it and frowned when she saw that her temperature was within an acceptable range for a normal human female.

Curious she reached into the Force and searched her body for an answer for her sudden nausea.

A smile suddenly formed on her face as she found the answer to her question. The Force had answered her.

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:)


	2. Hope and Search

I felt like Bomb (Blackbird) from Angry Birds at one point writing this. Twice while writing this my laptop just shut off without warning and blah blah blah. Anyway I took in to a repair shop and it has a problem cooling off. So I have ordered a cooling fan.

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Leia couldn't stop the tears that trickled down her cheeks as she held her newborn daughter close. After months of worrying that something would either go wrong or that she would wake up and it had all been a dream her daughter was here.

She was perfect; in her eyes at least.

Wispy brown hair covered her head and her eyes were a bright blue that would most likely turn a brown in a short time.

Leia felt some pain that this little child that she held in her arms might be her and Han's only child but at least they would be parents.

"She's as pretty as her mother." Han told her.

Leia laughed; there was no way in the Spiral Arms that she was pretty at the moment. She was covered in sweat and her hair was a mess.

"Beauty is in the eye of the beholder." Han whispered to her.

The door to her room slid open and Luke came in with a soft toy animal.

Leia carefully pushed herself up a little more so that she was in more of a seating position.

Luke came over, using the Force to pull a chair to the other side of the bed, and sat down next to her.

"So this is my niece." Luke said with a smile.

"Yes," Han said with pride.

"I can already tell that she will be strong in the Force." Leia told her brother.

Luke nodded.

"She will be a powerful Jedi one day." Luke informed her and Han.

Han laughed.

"I just hope that she isn't impatient like she was coming into the galaxy." Han said. "This little one nearly arrived in the parking area; at least that's what it felt like. Han commented to Luke.

Luke laughed at the thought.

"She waited for us to sign in and get into a room." Leia reminded her husband.

"It sure felt like she was going to arrive before we even got through the door." Han informed her. "The doctors were surprised when you said when you told them when your labor started."

"Don't remind me." Leia said. "At the rate you are going when the next child comes _you_ will feel the same amount of pain that I will be in."

The amusement in Han's eyes fled; but a moment later it was back.

"Another?" Han asked in shocked wonder.

"Yes, didn't you tell me that you want a little Han?" Leia asked with a smile.

Han just nodded.

Leia could tell that he was remembering when she had told him that a baby was on the way.

They had debated for weeks whether or not they should learn if the child was male or female. In the end they had decided to wait until the odds of the child's birth were higher. Leia had been slightly disappointed when she had learned that she was expecting a female. Up until then she had been debating which sounded better: Bail Anakin Solo or Anakin Bail Solo. She truly didn't know what to name a girl. She refused to name her after Breha; not after the rough early childhood she had had.

"I'm sure that she was just eager to meet her family." Luke said; snapping Leia back to the present.

"It seems so." Leia agreed.

"So, does she have a name?" Luke asked.

Leia shook her head.

"I flat out refuse to name her after Breha Organa and I don't really have anyone else that I would want to name her after." Leia stated.

"What about that politician that you have mentioned on several occasions, the one that died shortly after the Empire rose?" Luke asked.

"Padme Amidala?" Leia asked.

"That sounds right." Luke answered.

"She put the Emperor in power, refused to believe that something was wrong and then the Emperor had her killed and blamed the Jedi" Leia stated.

"I take it that you don't like her then." Luke said.

"I don't have a high opinion of her." Leia stated.

"But from what I understand she didn't put Palpatine into power she just asked for a Vote of No Confidence in Chancellor Valorum." Han began. "Palpatine then got voted into Office."

"How did the Emperor blame the Jedi for her death?" Luke asked; puzzled.

"Padme Amidala was pregnant during the end of the Clone Wars. Shortly after the Empire was established she disappeared from her apartment and turned up dead on some planet in the Outer Rim; the baby had died with her. There was a lot of outrage in the Senate and there were pleas that her death be examined but the Emperor used old laws on Naboo that stated she was to be buried without further examination." Leia stated.

"So you think that the Emperor had her killed because she knew something?" Luke asked.

"She was friends with a few Jedi." Leia told her brother. "I don't know which ones though. And I see that it is completely possible for the Emperor to have her killed for her connection to the since she could say something about the whole thing."

"She could have been expecting a child of a Jedi." Han mused.

Leia turned the suggestion over in her head.

She didn't know Padme Amidala but she doubted that a woman that fought so hard for the democracy and the Republic would commit Career Suicide by involving herself with a Jedi in such a manner.

"I doubt it since she didn't seem like the type that would have risked her career as a politician for a Jedi." Leia said.

"But what if they were in love and refused to deny how they felt so they kept their relationship a secret?" Han asked.

"That sounds like something from a bad romance drama or novel." Leia informed her husband.

"It does." Luke agreed.

"Twins separated at birth is pretty corny too." Han said smugly.

"Point," Luke said.

"But Leia has a point: a senator having an affair with a Jedi is like Vader and a senator having a relationship before the Rise of the Empire." Luke said. "I mean everyone knows how much he hated politicians."

Leia was about to laugh when she remembered something.

"He liked a few." Leia said suddenly.

"What?" Luke and Han asked.

"Vader liked a few." Leia stated. "He felt that Bail Organa was honest and not afraid to hide behind something. There were a few others who's names escape me but he knew Padme Amidala."

"How do you know that?" Luke asked, curious.

Leia knew that Luke liked to learn about Anakin Skywalker and Darth Vader. Luke wanted to know if there had been more of Anakin under the inky blackness of Vader.

Truth be told Leia really didn't like thinking of Anakin and Vader as the same person so she tried to see them as different people or entities depending on the day.

"I am on friendly terms with Pooja Naberrie, Padme Amidala's niece. Pooja told me once how she and Vader were alone in a room. Vader asked if her family had disproved of her career choice. She answered that they had been upset and wanted her to be something else. He stated that it was because of what happened to her aunt. She told me that it was as if he knew about her family's displeasure at the fact that she refused to settle down." Leia explained.

After that they switched back to names.

But something told Leia that she should look deeper into a possible connection between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala. If Vader had known that Padme Amidala's family had disproved her continuing her career as a politician then it stood to reason that Anakin had to have known as well. That meant that there had been a connection between the two.

"I vote that we sleep on her name." Han said; snapping Leia out of her musings.

"That might be a good idea." She agreed.

"You might end up taking her home without a name." Luke joked.

xxxxxxx

Leia sat at a computer terminal going through everything she could find on any possible connection between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala. It was slow going since not only she didn't know what she was looking for and the Emperor had encrypted many files on the Jedi.

Leia paused when she felt her daughter stir in the infant sling that she was in.

It had been two weeks and the baby still didn't have a name. Leia felt guilty but she wanted her daughter to have a name with meaning and tied to her family.

So far all she found was a holo of a celebration on Naboo about ten years before the Clone Wars started. Padme Amidala had been Queen on Naboo and Anakin had been a new Jedi Padawan.

Leia smiled as she examined the holo. Everyone looked so happy or relieved.

The computer beeped to say that it had found something else.

Leia selected it and found that it was a report from the first battle of the Clone Wars. It mentioned that Senator Amidala had traveled to Geonosis to negotiate the release of the Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi. She and the Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker had been sentenced to death instead. They had been rescued and the resulting battle was the first one in the Clone Wars.

Leia felt her interest pique. If Anakin had been with her shortly before the battle then it stood to reason that he had been with her before that; the question was though for how long.

Leia started to tare through the database. She couldn't say why but if Padme Amidala was somehow connected to her mother then maybe they could finally learn her identity after so long.

Leia doubted that her mother was Padme Amidala since the woman had died before she could give birth. Perhaps she was seeing Obi-Wan and the Emperor killed her for what Obi-Wan had done to his apprentice. Leia still wanted to vomit at the memory of the short clip that her and Luke had found a month ago that showed the burned and maimed body of their father.

An hour later Leia felt like destroying something. She was going in circles now.

Her daughter whimpered at her frustration and Leia felt herself soften.

Deciding that she needed a break Leia stood and headed for the food prep area and raided the cooling unit.

As she ate Leia stared at the traffic.

Some of her problem was the fact she didn't know if her parents had been in a long term relationship or a brief one. Were they married or content to just found comfort in each other's arms during lulls in the War?

Personally Leia liked to think that they had been married. She knew that it was probably unrealistic but Anakin Skywalker had been a man of honor at one point. As a child of either rape or a brief romance he might have wanted more for any children that they might have.

After a few moments Leia got up and headed back to the computer terminal. She would rely on the Force. She closed her eyes as she selected a planetary database and then asked for a search for Anakin Skywalker.

Leia opened her eyes to find that she had selected the database for the planet Naboo.

There were several things on Anakin Skywalker. They were mostly surrounding the Battle of Naboo which he had taken a part off as a nine standard year old child.

Leia kept looking. She doubted that the Force would have led her to this database if something wasn't here.

She quickly took a break to change her daughter and to use the refresher.

Soon she was back and searching again.

Leia did learn that Anakin Skywalker had been a bodyguard to Padme Amidala after an assassination attempt and that had lasted until the beginning of the Clone Wars.

Leia nodded to herself. This would explain how he knew how her family had felt about her staying in politics.

But she still felt that something was missing.

xxxxxx

Han Solo entered the apartment that he lived with his wife and daughter. It had been a long day and he was looking forward to relaxing with his wife and daughter.

He hoped that him and Leia could settle on a name soon. He would rather not have his daughter be referred to 'Baby Solo' for longer than a month. He had heard stories of parents that didn't name their children for months.

Han noted that Leia was at the computer terminal reading something.

"Han, did you know that if we married on Naboo we could ask the monks to keep our marriage a secret?" Leia asked as she turned to face him.

"Too bad we didn't know that when we got married." Han said as he walked over and kissed his wife. "It would have saved us a lot of trouble with certain beings that I could name."

Leia laughed.

Certain beings thought that she should have married someone rich or powerful in order to help the fledging government. Leia told them that they could rot with the Emperor's soul in whatever pit he had been sentenced to. It didn't stop the huge wedding though with tons of guests and what not. Han knew that if and when Luke got married that he would only have a private ceremony with only family and friends in attendance.

'The only thing would be that only us and those that were there would know about it." Han said.

Han watched as his wife suddenly stood.

"Only those that were there would know that we were married but we would have a certificate though." Leia whispered.

Han watched in puzzlement as Leia headed for the room where they were storing some things that had been in her father's room from the Jedi Temple. Her and Luke were going through all the flimsiplast, datapads and datacards that they could find in an effort to learn any to help them understand the man that had helped give them life.

"I found a file on a datapad a few months ago but it was encrypted and there was a passcode. We have been too worried to take it to someone that could slice it for us since we have no idea what is on it." Leia said as she returned with an older model datapad.

"But you and Luke figured out what the passcode was." Han said.

Leia nodded in agreement. "But we couldn't read what was on it because of the encryption on it. It appears to be something important though."

Han carefully took the datapad from his wife and looked at the file. It was encrypted pretty well.

"What was the passcode?" he asked.

"A list of numbers that form what looks like a date but if it is a date then he switched the places in such a way that we don't know for sure what it truly is or what it would have meant to him." Leia answered.

"Here, I'll show you." Leia said as she jotted some numbers on a sheet of flimsiplast.

Han looked at them and started looking at ways to detangle them. His days as a smuggler had taught him that beings use different kinds of code.

Han suddenly felt like laughing as he arranged the numbers into the "correct" positions.

"A few days after the beginning of the Clone Wars; if I figured it out correctly." Han said; feeling pleased.

"He would have still been getting used to his new cybernetic arm. The Jedi Council wouldn't want him injuring himself before he fully adjusted to it." Leia mused.

"But that doesn't explain why he used that date." Leia said as she moved their daughter into a nursing position.

Han scanned the file as he thought of the possibilities.

"His signature is terrible in this file. All the others that we have seen on the others are bad but this is the worst." Han commented.

Han opened the part of the file that would allow him to decrypt the file and found another passcode.

Without really thinking Han typed in the name of the woman that had been brought up several times.

The screen flashed red.

Han tried again; this time using the name Skywalker instead.

The screen flashed green and the screen showed some text and two signatures.

"Wow!" Han cried.

"What?" Leia asked.

"They were married." Han said as he turned the datapad around to show the two signatures to his lovely wife.

Han watched as his wife stared at the pad before carefully taking it from him.

"That would mean that he was unfaithful to her if we exist." Leia whispered.

"Leia," Han began, "if you had two powerful Force Sensitive children that the Emperor would destroy the first chance he got wouldn't you go out of your way to make it look like the mother never gave birth?" He asked.

"Only they would know but the rest of the galaxy would believe what was said." Leia said; catching on.

"A simple blood test would confirm it." Han said with a gentle smile.

"I have to talk to Luke." Leia said as she made retrieved her commlink.

Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

This was getting a little too long.

It looks like though that there is going to be a third chapter which is fine with me.

The place where I lost words was where they were discussing a connection between Anakin Skywalker and Padme Amidala. I really liked what I had the second time but since it wasn't saved it was lost. :`(

The ball really got rolling as I wrote their conversation and before I knew I was writing more than that.

I do know of people that take their infant children home without a name. A family that I know did that for their third child for sure. I think he went six weeks or so without a name.


End file.
